Wake Me Up When September Ends
by love.strawberries
Summary: [AU, faint 1x2 slash, death] War. It seems like such a simple three lettered word, but it's not. It's a word that can cause you to find love and death in the space of a breath.


**DISCLAIMER**: I do not own GW, it is a work of fiction coming from my own slash-obsessed brain, and as far as I know, this never happened.

**NOTES**: This story… is freakin' sad. Even I'll admit it. There's something about it (maybe because it's about war, and my dad was so close to getting shipped out) that really hits home for me… Inspired by Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends".

**A/N-** Oh, and BT is basic training, for those who didn't know. And I have no idea if "Sandrena" is a real place or not. Just pulled up a name on the top of my brain that sounded okay.

**x  
x  
x**

Duo Maxwell watched the floor as strands of his hair fell, the buzzing of the razor ringing in his ears. He felt tears rise up in his eyes, and felt washed over with stupidity. He hadn't cried when he hugged his father goodbye, hadn't cried when he'd kissed his mother goodbye, but would cry now because his hair was being cut?

The private cutting his hair patted his shoulder. "You're good, man." Duo stood up and the private, a tiny thing with bright blond hairand matching bright blue eyes, touched his hand briefly. "Go out back, you'll have a little privacy there." The understanding in his eyes made Duo almost break down then and there. He nodded, a short jerk of his head, and rushed back the waiting privates, careful not to look into the mirrors that surrounded him.

Outside, the sun shone and birds sang.

It was wartime.

x  
x  
x

Two months later, Duo stood with all the other privates, in front of their families, and formally completed BT. He could see his mother, crying her heart out. Duo raised his eyes away and looked straight. His tears had been taken from him first week of BT.

It was the only way to survive. Emotions held in, restrained.

The ceremony finished, Duo went to see his family. He'd just hugged his mother when sirens went off. Someone screamed, then privates started running. Duo snagged the arm of one he knew, Private Chang, and shouted at him to tell him what was going on.

"It's the post in Sandrena, it's been hit, we're being shipped out! C'mon!"

Duo's mother fainted. Duo's father went white, then, tight-lipped, yanked Duo into a fierce hug and shoved him away. "Go."

For Duo, that word was everything, blessing and prayer and farewell and love, all at once. He nodded, then let himself be pulled by Chang to their cabin. Everything was strangely detached from him. He didn't… _feel_ anything. It was all… logical. He was going to war. He was most likely going to die.

He was ready.

It wasn't until he was on the naval carrier, listening to the details of the situation, that his hands started to shake.

x  
x  
x

"Get the hell back! Move, move, move! Mawell, get your ass in gear!"

Duo dropped the still, warm body of Private Wufei Chang and grabbed his M-16. He sent a brief, wordless prayer upwards, and then pushed all emotions out of his heart. He closed it off, and just concentrated on the slick trigger of his gun and the _rat-tat-tat_ of the bullets.

He ran out of bullets, he yanked out the magazine and slammed in the new one.

_Sir, sir, another private down!_

He tripped over the body of an enemy, he shot it once through the head to make sure it was dead.

_Shoot the goddamned bastard, Private, unless you never want to see Momma again!_

He brushed past Sergeant Barton, he listened for instructions.

_Ahhhhhhhhhh!_

And he kept on, bullet after bullet, magazine after magazine, body after body. In his mind, the words he'd said to his mother just yesterday rang through his mind.

"_I'll be home when September ends."_

Septemeber 19.

x  
x  
x

Duo listened quietly as Sergeant Peacecraft explained their next mission. After it all, his mind took the long, complicated plan and changed it into simpler, cruder words: run in, blast the shit out of anything wearing enemy uniforms.

He saluted with the rest of his unit, then slumped. He hadn't slept in days, weeks. He was too wired, too paranoid.

Duo thought briefly of his girlfriend back home before going to grab a bite to eat and get more magazines for his rifle.

x  
x  
x

It was dark. The darkness was closing in on him, and he couldn't breath. He cried, and names came to life on his lips.

x  
x  
x

Screams echoed in the air and Duo shut his eyes, trying not to see. He knew that voice, knew that voice that was calling out for their mother.

The mission had been a failure. A damn, fucking failure. The Sergeant was dead, countless acquaintances were dead. And him? He was now a POW. It was different, seeing those stark, lifeless initials on a pure white paper, then to become it. To embody it.

Prisoner of War.

Would they let him go?

Another scream rang out.

No.

x  
x  
x

The days were countless. All he knew in the dank, dark space was pain. Not his, but _theirs_. His comrades, being tortured for information that they wouldn't give. He wondered, how long before someone couldn't take it, before someone yelled everything and anything to be delivered into God's grace?

He waited for his turn.

x  
x  
x

He opened his eyes for the first time in… who knows how long. The first thing he saw was darkness. The screaming had long since stopped, and he was… curious. Yes, curious. Duo wanted to know, where was he? Where was he being held? Was there anyone with him? With all the screaming, he wouldn't have heard anyone in the Nightmare-Place with him.

Duo hesitantly brought his arms underneath him and pushed himself up. Or, he tried to, but a sharp pain in his right arm stopped him cold. He bit his lip to stop his cry of pain, he didn't know who was out there, he didn't want them to know he was awake. He took deep breaths, and soon enough, the pain faded away.

So, he rolled to his back and used his good arm to push himself up. He managed, and focused his attention to his Nightmare-Place.

…he couldn't see a damn thing.

He gave his eyes a bit to adjust, but it didn't help at all. He couldn't see. He couldn't make anything out.

His heart beat faster and he shook as he struggled to come to terms with a place and situation, that before never existed to him.

He stopped shaking as soon as he realized, he would die in the Nightmare-Place, and that he welcomed it. He no longer had the will, the strength to live through it all.

So he let his mind go, and hoped it would be quick.

x  
x  
x

He tried to move, and couldn't. No food, no water. And he had been starving _before_ being captured.

So he did the only thing he could do.

He passed out.

x  
x  
x

And woke up to harsh, bright light that shot pain into his eyes. He screamed, and instantly, unseen hands pressed him down, covered his mouth, covered his eyes.

"It's all right, it's all right! You're save now, we're Americans! You're safe now!"

The only words that penetrated his panic was the word safe.

Safe.

Safe.

Safe.

He passed out again.

x  
x  
x

Duo sat in his tent, eyes latched onto the dying sun. A dying sun he couldn't see. It had been a week since he'd been saved.

He had, it seemed, damaged his eyes when he'd gotten captured. That was why he hadn't been able to see his cell. He was blind. He could see a few colors, maybe, but abstract, indistinct.

He hadn't cried over it yet, and wasn't planning too.

The warmth of the sun on his face was blocked by a figure. He looked up and was caught off guard by a brilliant flash of blue before plunging back into black. "Duo Maxwell?"

Duo stood up warily, steadying himself on his cane. "What d'you want?" There were sounds of someone coming in, and Duo resisted the urge to pull back and run. His hands gripped tighter on the head of the cane. Instead, he concentrated on the voice he'd just heard. Sex in audio, deep and smooth. Almost like a positive of the dark he was living in.

"My name is Heero. I was the one to get you out of that prison. I brought you back."

Duo felt a rush of gratitude that was unexpected. "You… You saved me?"

"Yes."

Duo fell silent. What do you say to someone who saved your life? Thank you… wasn't enough. Never enough.

He felt a cool brush of fingers on his cheek. He didn't flinch. Instead, he did what his instincts, his heart, told him to do. He leaned forward, and unerringly found soft lips with his.

A soft sigh floated to his ears, and he wasn't sure if it was his or Heero's.

Duo finally cried tears long locked up. Emotions flooded in that he had forgotten, and he found that he now wanted to live again.

x  
x  
x

A scream rang through the house and a slip of paper fell from a pale hand.

_Dear Mr. And Mrs. Maxwell,_

_We're sorry to inform you, but your son, Private Duo Maxwell, died on the thirtieth of September, as enemy troops shot down the medical helicopter that was transporting him back to America_...


End file.
